Five of the world’s top banks will pay over $5 billion in fines after pleading guilty to rigging the price of foreign currencies and interest rates. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the $5 trillion FX spot market. UBS pleaded guilty for its role in manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate. No individual bank...

After a historic victory in Greece, the leftist Syriza party’s finance minister has begun a tour of Europe to push an anti-austerity message. The former economist Yanis Varoufakis has promised "radical" change as his government seeks to renegotiate Greece’s huge debt obligations and to roll back key parts of its international bailout. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says he is confident that Greece can reach a deal...

In holiday special, we feature a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive interview with Alayne Fleischmann, the whistleblower who helped the Justice Department force JPMorgan Chase to pay one of the largest fines in U.S. history for its role in the financial crisis. She is featured in a Rolling Stone investigation by recently returned Matt Taibbi, who also joins us. Fleischmann details how she witnessed "massive criminal securities fraud"...

In part two of our holiday special, we feature our April 2014 interview with Matt Taibbi about his book, "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap." The book asks why the vast majority of white-collar criminals have avoided prison since the financial crisis began, while an unequal justice system imprisons the poor and people of color on a mass scale. "It is much more grotesque to consider the non-enforcement...

A year ago this month the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the banking giant JPMorgan Chase would avoid criminal charges by agreeing to pay $13 billion to settle claims that it had routinely overstated the quality of mortgages it was selling to investors. But how did the bank avoid prosecution for committing fraud that helped cause the 2008 financial crisis? Today we speak to JPMorgan Chase whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann in her...

Attorney General Eric Holder announced his plan to resign Thursday after nearly six years as head of the Justice Department. He will remain in office until a successor is nominated and confirmed. Assessments of Holder’s legacy as attorney general have been mixed. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund hailed Holder as one of the finest attorneys general in the nation’s history in part for his role in transforming the Civil Rights Division of...

Read part of "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap," by Matt Taibbi, who joined us to examine one of the "greatest challenges we face in contemporary American life: surviving a system that devours the lives of the poor, turns a blind eye to the destructive crimes of the wealthy, and implicates us all."

Read an excerpt of "All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power," by reporter, Nomi Prins, who joined us Tuesday to discuss the hundred-year interdependence between the White House and Wall Street.

With U.S. inequality at its highest point since 1928 and Wall Street bonuses hitting pre-2008 levels, we look at the 100-year history of secret collusion between Washington and the financial industry. In her new book, "All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power," financial journalist Nomi Prins explores how a small number of bankers have played critical roles in shaping a century’s worth...

Costa-Gavras joins us for the hour to discuss a nearly 50-year career that has earned him the reputation as one of the world’s greatest living political filmmakers. Born in Greece in 1933, the 80-year-old has won two Academy Awards for his films "Z" and "Missing." Other acclaimed films include "State of Siege," "Amen.," "Music Box," "The Confession," "Hanna K." and...

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